Tales of Bittersweet Loyalty

Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Cheering for a False Idol

In Baseball, Houston on June 30, 2011 at 10:00 AM

My heroes always carried a glove, not a cape.  Somewhere in my closet, I had a nice collection of comic books, but they were just a collection.  My pride and joy were my baseball cards.  I spent countless hours memorizing stats, sorting them and creating trades in my head (an early precursor to fantasy baseball).  These weren’t just guys playing baseball.  They represented everything I wanted to be.  Simply put, the Houston Astros were my life.  To a large degree, they still are, but it’s not and will never be the same again.  As a kid, I was fortunate enough to have had many encounters with these superheroes, but in the end, those experiences have become a touch too bittersweet.

Ken Caminiti was the greatest 3rd baseman I’d ever seen.  Maybe he wasn’t, but when you’re nine, you have a distorted frame of reference.  All I knew was that he could stop a bullet down the line and fire off a fastball to first that would have made Nolan Ryan blush.  Yeah, and he swung a mean stick.  But more than that, he was a good guy, and he played for my team.  Bagwell, Biggio, Gonzalez, they all were.  How could they not be?  I cheered for them, I wore a smile for weeks after I got one of them to sign a ball for me, and I religiously watched them at night.  Even after Caminiti was traded to San Diego, he was still a Houston Astro for me.  Being one was more than a jersey; he just happened to play elsewhere.  I had no perspective at that age about the “business” end of sports.  It was so much more than just that.

In 1996, Ken Caminiti reached the top with the Padres.  He was named the 1996 National League MVP and won his second consecutive Golden Glove.  A couple of years later, he made it to the Series.  And like many athletes, he had a rough end to his career.  Suddenly, he could no longer make the plays or manage his way through the pain.  Ultimately, he flamed out at first base for the Braves.  All in all, though, it was still a great career.

And then it happened.  Eight years and many confessions later, Caminiti was dead.  I had lost a part of me.  I had lost my innocence.  Superheroes weren’t supposed to die.  Or have a cocaine habit.  Or cheat.  Watching his fall was painful.  I poured over his Sports Illustrated story and tales of steroid abuse.  All those stats I had memorized now had a nice, big asterisk.

But this is not about steroids or other drugs.  It’s about last piece of the puzzle that Caminiti’s demise helped me figure out about baseball, sports and, well, everything.  What I saw so clearly as a kid became an impossibility as an adult.

Realizing that so many of my idols were false idols makes it hard for me to be a baseball fan nowadays, or at least one that’s not cynical.  Baseball is a proud and stubborn sport, to say the least.  It’s basked in tradition and numbers.  And for a good part of my youth, many of those playing at the highest level blatantly disregarded this history.  I’d like to believe baseball has cleaned itself up over the last few years.  And while the cynic in me is ready to forgive the sport, I refuse to forget.  After all, I still find myself comparing every third basemen today to Caminiti.

But cynicism has its limits: As an adult, I realize athletes aren’t mythological.  They’re just people like you and me.  Like many, Caminiti had his flaws and made his share of mistakes.  Unfortunately, his mistakes (and those of other athletes) were put in the spotlight for everyone to see.  But I still believe he was a good guy.  He had to be.

You Have to Start Somewhere

In Chicago, Football, Soccer on June 29, 2011 at 10:00 AM

I wasn’t raised a sports fan.  I was raised, by my father, to love the New York Giants and thus loathe the Philadelphia Eagles, but I couldn’t tell you anything about the sport. My mother, in an attempt to raise children with less rigid gender roles, enrolled both my brother and I in soccer and ballet.  She figured we would experience different ends of the spectrum and decide for ourselves which suited us better.  Though we participated in both activities, we eventually fell into traditional roles: He competed in soccer and track & field, whereas I continued dancing three to four times a week.  (There is an anecdote about my standing on the soccer pitch, twirling my pigtails; I was quite disinterested.)  I continued not caring about sports for many, many years.

Then, in 2004, I began dating a man who was an ardent Chicago Bears fan.  At the beginning of our relationship, it was easy to avoid the games: Adam would be busy on Sunday afternoons, and I’d find something else to do.  Football gave me an excuse to have boozy brunches with my ladies.  (Though, come to think of it, I probably didn’t need an excuse.)  Once we began cohabiting, though, the NFL was much harder to avoid.  Initially, we struck a bargain: If I received physical attention in the form of cuddling, I’d watch the games with him.  Then the bargain extended to the bar: I’d only come if at least one of my beers was purchased for me and there were wings.  Inadvertently, I started learning about the game.  At the beginning, I would make up meanings for the call gestures: holding wasn’t holding, it was fisting; that’s not a false start, but rather a sign for the bossa nova (time for a dance break)!  The discovery of a new favorite sound made the game even more entertaining: When the rival team attempted a field goal and missed by hitting the posts, the resounding klongggggggg was pure pleasure.  Eventually, I did actually accumulate some knowledge, though I’m still nowhere near the level of my male friends who make the calls before the referees do.

RedEye reporter Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz listed, in a 2007 guest-post on Luis Arroyave’s blog Red Card, five ways to engage your girlfriend in sports.  In her case, the sport in question was soccer, but these tips work across the board.  Elejade-Ruiz nailed it:

1. Take her to a game
2. Take the time to talk to her about the sport
3. Show her photos of the team studs
4. Invite her to join your co-ed team or at least invite her to watch you play
5. Bargain with her

My path to being interested in sports on any level hit each of these marks.  My good friend, Danny, worked for a time on the Major League Soccer website.  That, combined with a trip to Adam’s Chicago family, gave the boys a perfect opportunity to introduce me to soccer.  (I still think it should be called football, as it is everywhere else in the world and is far more accurate.)  As I said before, what I knew of soccer extended to the tips of my braids, but they were committed to changing that.  And what better way than to take me to a live game?  Not just any live game, though: The opening of Chicagoland area’s Toyota Park in June 2006.  When it comes to sports, live games are good, opening days are better and grand openings are best—talk about fanfare!  During the game they gave me insights and explanations on how the game was played (much the same way they would on Sunday afternoons at football bars).  Our seats were not the best in the arena, but from where we were sitting I could see many of the players and quickly developed a crush on Chicago Fire’s lanky Nate Jaqua (now of the Seattle Sounders FC), whom I started referring to as “Naqua.”

Just in that one evening, the boys managed to hit the first three points on Elejalde-Ruiz’s list.  My re-introduction and education in football had already been covered via bargaining, bribery and, though I didn’t mention it before, finding a crush (or two).  But what about that fourth point?  Though New York City is rife with social sports leagues, none of my male friends played football. They did play street hockey, though…

The Teams We Root For

In Basketball, Loyalty on June 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM

The NBA Finals wrapped up recently, and one of the many fun facts used as filler by the announcers was that, despite being from Ohio, LeBron James grew up as a Chicago Bulls fan.  Not only that, but he also supports the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys.  If he liked the Lakers instead of the Bulls, it would have completed the trifecta of national bandwagon sports fan franchises.

While his allegiances make me want to stick my finger down my throat, it’s hard to find fault in the reasoning of how Mr. James chose the teams that he did.  Imagine being a child growing up in the 1990s with no presumable father figure. Now, imagine being a developing athlete in the process of cultivating your love of  sports.  At the beginning, you have no predispositions or influences regarding which teams to support.  It seems natural that one would gravitate towards supporting the successful franchises of the era.  In this case, the Bulls, Yankees and Cowboys were the clear choices.  Other teams never had a chance.

People pick favorite teams for a variety of reasons, all of which are valid: “I grew up near [city],” or “I went to school in [city], so I support franchise X.”  Often, a person picks a team because of their father: Either to coincide with or go against the paternal grain.  (This explains why there’s an inordinate Cowboys following in New Jersey.)  When there is a lack of personal or geographical connection to any city or franchise, the uninformed fan will logically, in most instances, choose the team that is winning.  People who care about following a sports team care about winning.  If winning isn’t the goal, or isn’t important, then you don’t really care about your team.

If you have a similar portfolio of favorite teams as LeBron James,  I will make fun of you and then shake my head.  This is a promise.  In fact, this has probably already happened.  However, I won’t disregard your fan loyalty, as long as you exhibit a level of commitment to the teams you claim to support.  As long your loyalty doesn’t waiver, you can cheer for the Yankees and the Cowboys.  Basically, everyone is entitled to jump on bandwagons as the basis of becoming a fan, but if you jump off that bandwagon, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your understanding of sport.

Then there’s the worst fan of all: The one who hops from bandwagon to bandwagon.  This is the guy who traded in his Yankee cap for one from Boston in 2004.  As a baseball fan, this makes me angry.  As a believer in sports loyalty, this makes me sad.  It doesn’t matter to this guy who he supports, just as long as he supports the winning team.  This is who Bob Dylan referred to in “Positively 4th Street”—You got a lotta nerve / To say you got a helping hand to lend / You just want to be on / The side that’s winning—that is, if the song were about sports and not some bitch that Dylan was ripping apart.  If all that you care about is supporting the winner and don’t particularly care who wins, then the sport itself means nothing to you.

There is a loophole to the bandwagon hopping system though.  If the reason you became a fan of a team is because of player X, then it is acceptable to switch favorite teams to stick with that player.  Since he’s been such a standout figure in recent memory, let’s continue to use good ol’ Mr. James as an example.  If you became an NBA and Cleveland Cavaliers fan as a result of LeBron, then it was perfectly within your right to move on as he did.  This logic is understandable.  Personally though, I would’ve grown attached to the Cavs as a result of him, and then stuck with the franchise even after “The Decision.”  Franchises trump players.  Players come and go, but the teams stay put (unless they’re owned by Art Modell or Clay Bennett, of course).

Almost as bad (and much more idiotic) as the bandwagon hopper is the polygamist who claims to have two or more favorite teams within the same sport.  The worst is when the two teams fall within the same division of the particular sport.  I went to high school with a guy who claimed that his two “favorite” NBA teams were the Celtics and the Knicks.  Liking these two teams equally is an impossibility, as they compete for the same division every year.  The inherent flaw of this guy’s logic exposes itself when the two teams face off against each other: He then roots for the Celtics.  If that’s the case, then you can’t claim for the Knicks to be your favorite, Bruno.  Look up the definition of “favorite” some time.  You’ll see what I mean.

So what kind of fan are you? Are you the bandwagon hopper? Or are you the die-hard superfan who, through good times and bad, stubbornly believes that this is the year your hometown will finally make a run at a championship?

Learning to Love the Hated

In Basketball, Houston, Loyalty on June 27, 2011 at 10:00 AM

There are people in Kentucky who will threaten bloody murder upon hearing the words “Christian” and “Laettner” one after another.  Because his shot was the kind of moment that creates hatred in the heart.  It’s the kind of moment that spontaneously imbues everlasting enmity towards not just players, but whole franchises.  And tragically, every fan has one of these moments.  For me, it was John Stockton’s three-pointer against my Rockets in Game 6 of the 1997 Western Conference Finals.

Little did I know that it was just the beginning: The Jazz went on to knock us out of the playoffs three more times over the next decade (1998, 2007, 2008).  On their first go-around, the Jazz were hated for being ruthless: On top of Stockton, you had the hard-to-love, nearly mechanical mailman in Karl Malone and James Bond-villain rejectee Greg Ostertag.  (Face it: If they remade The Spy Who Loved Me, Richard Kiel would have had some serious competition for the role of Jaws.)  As if that wasn’t enough of a trio to despise, Jerry Sloan came off as a brutally exacting coach.  He kept the Jazz competitive every year without actually winning.  They were the NBA-counterpart of the 90s Braves (though Bobby Cox did get his World Series win).  It’s frustrating seeing a team fail so often, especially when they do so at your expense.  Then came the crew of Boozer, AK47, D-Will and Ashton Kutcher.  While lacking the same sort of instant revulsion the old school crew brought us, Sloan’s basic presence still allowed them to embody the sort of cold swagger that reminded us of the Stockton-Malone era.  The first round exits in 2007 and 2008 were effectively the only real shot we ever had for the McGrady-Yao combo to bring home a trophy.  And the Jazz killed it.  They dashed our hopes, slashed our tires, left us on a ditch with our necks spewing blood on broken glass.  The team was broken, spirits dismantled.  Fans were on the verge of complete resignation.  The only thoughts that ran through our minds: “Fucking Stockton.”  It always went back to him.  To that one shot.

On February 9 of this year, Jerry Sloan coached his last game as the coach of the Utah Jazz.  On February 23, Deron Williams was traded to the New Jersey Nets.  Boozer left the summer before in free agency, as did Korver.  It’s inevitable that Kirilenko will bolt this summer (possibly to the Russian-soiled Nyets or literally to Russian soil).  And now the Jazz are no longer the team that I hated.  Been a huge fan of Al Jefferson for years, watching him toil away in the Minnesota cold.  Like Devin Harris and am looking for good things from Derrick Favors.  And when on draft night Enes Kanter found himself in Salt Lake City, I started feeling guilty.

I kind of want to support these guys.

Does that make me disloyal?  Am I suddenly a treacherous fool unworthy of cheering for the Rocket Red?  The Jazz and the Rockets don’t have a geographical rivalry: It’s been a purely incidental product of chance playoff seedings.  We’re not even in the same division anymore.  And the bad blood is mostly within a 15 year time frame.  Or wait: Am I just making excuses?

At what point are we allowed to stop hating certain teams?  If the Red Sox move to Montreal and change their name to the Expos, will Yankee fans still be mandated to wish ill on their pitchers and hock long-distance loogies at batters on-deck?   The Seattle SuperSonics were the bane of my existence as an early 90s Rockets fan.  But they’re the Thunder now.  In Oklahoma City.  With a crop of young talent headlined by a Longhorn.  I support them without guilt.  Is there a flaw in our logic of who we can and cannot hate?  The Jazz aren’t moving, but their pieces are drastically different from before.  The only real vestige of the old guard is Okur, and even he may be gone after next year.  Is change of culture enough of a justification?

Between love and hate, the memories we try to forget (or grudgingly hold onto because it feeds us the fire we sometimes need), there has to be a way to learn to love the hated.  Blind hate does a disservice to the beauty of a game.  It does disservice to players who are trying to make something of themselves.  All indications point to Kanter being the kind of guy you want on your team.  Shall we force upon him an unnecessary, inherited hatred?  We support teams because we like the sport.  The sport is the priority.  When we let blind hatred ruin the appreciation of a game, are we even worthy of being a fan?